Bookings are only as significant individually as the mentality of the player allows. Gary Lineker of England never received a single booking in his entire career, while Duncan Ferguson and Patrick Vieira earned 8 red cards each in the Premier League! But the game of Xpert Eleven has a different side to it. Referees are a lot more predictable, and players have specific traits much like real life. Managers can maximise the chances of referees avoiding their players by instructing their players to play carefully, but despite this, there are still players who creep out of the manager's sphere of influence and get dirty! Or even more still, some managers prefer to bruise with harsh refs!

In this month's Xpert Xtra, we're going to have a look at some of the hardest players in Xpert Eleven, and see just how dirty they are! Unfortunately due to restrictions, we can only track the amount of league cards a player earned in their career, all stats are accessible unless they've moved clubs in their career, in which case it gets harder to track... so we'll be looking at those who rule the leagues!

These two start our red list of death. Brygmann is number 5 on the list. You'd think back in season 14, when he picked up 6 yellows in one season somebody would have taken the young midfielder aside and had a talk with him, to try and shape him as a footballer, but it seems he slipped under the net. He picked up a red 5 seasons later, and then having been provoked in season 23 about how he 'wasn't as hard as he used to be', went on to earn an unrespectable 28 yellow cards and 10 red cards in just 4 seasons. Eye of the Tiger anyone? Kompany is a lot more consistent. Never going more than 2 seasons without booking accolades, his dirty antics on the field have fuelled rumours that the only reason he still plays is because the manager is too scared to drop him. Kompany has never played above Division 6 with his new team, maybe his bookings are holding him back, with a whopping 15 for the club so far!

At the time of writing this, Virgil McGuinnes is currently suspended following a brawl in this game! Sums up the man who is third on the list. Virgil has 16 red cards and has had spells of aggression. Virgil started his claim to fame in season 16 when he picked up 10 yellows and FOUR red cards. A pretty incredible record to be fair. Most players wouldn't achieve that if you bruised with 9/9 refs all season! Virgil seemed to show some sort of rehabilitation from aggression when he went 4 seasons without a booking merit. But season 23 saw the old Virgil returned as old age probably made him start to enjoy the early bath a little too much!

Eusebiu Alecu came to his club as an 18/4 many a year ago looking to play some football, and crack some heads! With the exception of one prolific season where he bagged six goals and earned himself a bronze merit in the process, Alecu is known for not much more than hurting people. His high or low depending on how you see it came in season 17 when he earned a whopping 10 yellows and 2 reds, I kid you not. If you assume he was suspended for one game following each red then that means he didn't go a game without picking up a booking. Regardless, he must be doing something right, in his time at the club he's seen them go from Division 7:121 to Division 1a. Every team needs a tough nut!

Playing for the rather appropriately named Hellbury, Richie Bellenger, I was forced to nickname him The Enforcer after he threatened to go after me if I didn't subtitle him with that name. Richie Bellenger is the dirtiest player in the official leagues of Xpert Eleven, he's earned 19 red cards yet still plays quite regularly. He's 35 years old and his worst season has to have been season 9 in his Classic League days, earning 7 yellow cards and 3 red cards in just the one season. That's at least 5 games out suspended, he must have been impressing somehow though, seeing as he remained at the club for another 3 seasons (earning at least one red per season of course). Richie takes great pride in his extensive merits record, with a truly impressive number of 'most sending off' medals.

Hellbury are half way into their season, guess who the only player to earn a red card in their team so far this season is?

Take me to the 100 club!

A small feature here, nobody in the Xpert Leagues has earned 100 yellow cards yet to our knowledge, but one man is incredibly close. Meet Patrício Oliveira. Patricio is 36 and is currently on 98 cards, the veteran announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season and he has 3 games left to play in before he hangs up his boots. Pat hasn't picked up a yellow card in any of his last two seasons and rumours that Robert Nixon has taken bribes to send Pat off via two yellow cards have been denied by the ref. Pat clearly brings more to the table than just yellow cards though, having once commanded a 30m transfer to his current club. Will Pat make it to 100? Find out by tuning into the Major League on Fridays.

So there we have it. Some of the hardest players in the leagues of Xpert Eleven. Many of these players are on their last legs, but that won't stop them making a super late challenge! Maybe you've got a youngster who loves to pick up the bookings? Or a player in the private leagues who can't help but see yellow and red! Post them in the comments, the XD are always interested to see all the latest cases!